SO after a glimmer of hope off the pitch, a glimmer of hope on it.

SO after a glimmer of hope off the pitch, a glimmer of hope on it. That's blind optimism for you, anyway.

Everton last night wrested a draw from a game they largely deserved to lose, thanks to Joseph Yobo's late header.

But little else suggested anything but a great deal of work still needs to be done with David Moyes's squad leaving today for America.

As the Scot admitted: "We didn't play very well, but we go away now for another spell now and hopefully we can continue to keep improving.

"At the moment the results don't matter, but it would have been nice if we could have played a little bit better."

Such has been the relentlessly dismal quality of news emanating from Goodison these last few weeks, yesterday's capture of Tim Cahill was the transfer equivalent of hot soup at the top of a rain-battered mountain.

The snaring of a Millwall player may in years past not have proved the highlight of summer's shopping, but unless things drastically improve, it may prove the pinnacle of this holiday's activity for Moyes.

Let's hope not, with a couple more arrivals rumoured to be imminent, but at least Evertonians have a new player of some promise to speculate on, plus the added and rare satisfaction of knowing that for once another club, Crystal Palace, was fended off in his chase.

What small mercies.

Almost as satisfying yesterday was the virtual conclusion to the Tomasz Radzinski saga, the player who got what he want and then decided it wasn't what he wanted. His subsequent dummy-spitting ostracised himself from Moyes's plans and although the deal is not finalised yet, Moyes will hope it is not far off yet.

Unfortunately, Cahill's arrival has come too late for him to be on the plane to America, visa requirements again the issue but more a question of logistics than the black mark that led to Duncan Ferguson's passport failing to get stamped.

That leaves him with just three recognised strikers in Marcus Bent, Nick Chadwick and Kevin Campbell.

Moyes chose to give all three a 45-minute run-out last night, new boy Bent looking alert, if not exactly threatening.

Pre-season games in the middle of July have a tendency to be desperately tedious affairs, and the first half promised no change from the norm.

In front of a typically patchy crowd, Steve Cotterill's Coca-Cola League Championship outfit strung together what moments of excitement there were.

Moyes started with a relatively strong XI, with Lee Carsley and Steve Watson playing in central midfield and James McFadden and Kevin Kilbane on the flanks.

The visitors were indebted to Richard Wright's double save early on, keeping out first Richard Chaplow and then Robbie Blake.

Blake did deservedly give the home side the lead after 19 minutes, sweeping the ball in from the edge of the area, and they could easily have gone further ahead shortly before half-time had Graham Branch's low shot not ricocheted off Wright and against the crossbar.

The second half brought a raft of changes, Bent and Campbell giving way for Ferguson and Chadwick and Leon Osman, David Weir and Alessandro Pistone.

They appeared to make precious little difference to the attacking threat posed by Moyes's men, at least until Osman's smart volley on the turn after Pistone's cross.

And in fact it was from the Gary Naysmith's resulting corner that Everton drew level, Yobo rising to head a rare goal and at least stemming the flow of travelling fans that by stage.

A bit of noise from the fans though had clearly shaken Everton into some sort of life, and moments later they were narrowly disallowed a neat Chadwick over-head volley from short range, the striker ajudged to have been marginally offside.